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.'Indeed it was! And it gave me the shock of my life.You see, I'd completely swallowed that story about "gastric dilation".; Well, I didn't waste any time.I rescued our good rug from the floor and spread a blanket for her to he on.The whole time the girl was yelling like a stuck pig.By the time the doctor from the maternity clinic arrived, the baby had already been born.But our sitting-room was a pretty shambles!''Oh, that I'm sure of!' said another of their friends, and the whole company burst into laughter.Toshiko was dumbfounded to hear her husband discussing the horrifying happening as though it were no more than an amusing incident which they chanced to have witnessed.She shut her eyes for a moment and all at once she saw the newborn baby lying before her: on the parquet floor the infant lay, and his frail body was wrapped in bloodstained newspapers.Toshiko was sure that the doctor had done the whole thing out of spite.As if to emphasize his scorn for this mother who had given birth to a bastard under such sordid conditions, he had told his assistant to wrap the baby in some loose newspapers, rather than proper swaddling.This callous treatment of the newborn child had offended Toshiko.Overcoming her disgust at the entire scene, she had fetched a brand-new piece of flannel from her cupboard and, having swaddled the baby in it, had laid him carefully in an armchair.This all had taken place in the evening after her husband had left the house.Toshiko had told him nothing of it, fearing that he would think her oversoft, oversentimental; yet the scene had engraved itself deeply in her mind.Tonight she sat silently thinking back on it, while the jazz orchestra brayed and her husband chatted cheerfully with his friends.She knew that she would never forget the sight of the baby, wrapped in stained newspapers and lying on the floor - it was a scene fit for a butcher's shop.Toshiko, whose own life had been spent in solid 182comfort, poignantly felt the wretchedness of the illegitimate baby.I am the only person to have witnessed its shame, the thought occurred to her.The mother never saw her child lying there in its newspaper wrappings, and the baby itself of course didn't know.I alone shall have to preserve that terrible scene in my memory.When the baby grows up and wants to find out about his birth, there will be no one to tell him, so long as I preserve silence.How strange that I should have this feeling of guilt!After all, it was I who took him up from the floor, swathed him properly in flannel, and laid him down to sleep in the armchair.They left the night club and Toshiko stepped into the taxi that her husband had called for her.'Take this lady to Ushi-gome,' he told the driver and shut the door from the outside.Toshiko gazed through the window at her husband's smiling face and noticed his strong, white teeth.Then she leaned back in the seat, oppressed by the knowledge that their life together was in some way too easy, too painless.It would have been difficult for her to put her thoughts into words.Through the rear window of the taxi she took a last look at her husband.He was striding along the street towards his Nash car, and soon the back of his rather garish tweed coat had blended with the figures of the passers-by.The taxi drove off, passed down a street dotted with bars and then by a theatre, in front of which the throngs of people jostled each other on the pavement.Although the performance had only just ended, the lights had already been turned out and in the half dark outside it was depressingly obvious that the cherry blossoms decorating the front of the theatre were merely scraps of white paper.Even if that baby should grow up in ignorance of the secret of his birth, he can never become a respectable citizen, reflected Toshiko, pursuing the same train of thoughts.Those soiled newspaper swaddling clothes will be the symbol of his entire life.But why should I keep worrying about him so much? Is it because I feel uneasy about the future of my own child? Say twenty years from now, when our boy will have grown up into 183a fine, carefully educated young man, one day by a quirk of fate he meets that other boy, who then will also have turned twenty.And say that the other boy, who has been sinned against, savagely stabs him with a knife.It was a warm, overcast April night, but thoughts of the future made Toshiko feel cold and miserable.She shivered on the back seat of the car.No, when the time comes I shall take my son's place, she told herself suddenly.Twenty years from now I shall be forty-three.; I shall go to that young man and tell him straight out about everything - about his newspaper swaddling clothes, and about how I went and wrapped him in flannel.The taxi ran along the dark wide road that was bordered by the park and by the Imperial Palace moat.In the distance Toshiko noticed the pinpricks of light which came from the blocks of tall office buildings.Twenty years from now that wretched child will be in utter misery.He will be living a desolate, hopeless, poverty-stricken existence - a lonely rat.What else could happen to a baby who has had such a birth? He'll be wandering through the streets by himself, cursing his father, loathing his mother.No doubt Toshiko derived a certain satisfaction from her sombre thoughts: she tortured herself with them without cease.The taxi approached Hanzomon and drove past the compound of the British Embassy.At that point the famous rows of cherry-trees were spread out before Toshiko in all their purity«On the spur of the moment she decided to go and view the blossoms by herself in the dark night.It was a strange decision for a timid and unadventurous young woman, but then she was in a strange state of mind and she dreaded the return home.That evening all sorts of unsettling fancies had burst open in her mind.She crossed the wide street - a slim, solitary figure in the darkness.As a rule when she walked in the traffic Toshiko used to cling fearfully to her companion, but tonight she darted alone between the cars and a moment later had reached the long, narrow park that borders the Palace moat.Chidorigafuchi,.it is called - the Abyss of the Thousand BirdSj 184Tonight the whole park had become a grove of blossoming cherry-trees.Under the calm cloudy sky the blossoms formed a mass of solid whiteness.The paper lanterns that hung from wires between the trees had been put out; in their place electric light bulbs, red, yellow, and green, shone dully beneath the blossoms.It was well past ten o'clock and most of the flower*viewers had gone home.As the occasional passers-by strolled through the park, they would automatically kick aside the empty bottles or crush the waste paper beneath their feet Newspapers, thought Toshiko, her mind going back once again to those happenings.Bloodstained newspapers.If a man were ever to hear of that piteous birth and know that it was he who had lain there, it would ruin his entire life.To think that I, a perfect stranger, should from now on have to keep such a secret - the secret of a man's whole existence.? s Lost in these thoughts.Toshiko walked on through the park.: Most of the people still remaining there were quiet couples; no one paid her any attention.She noticed two people sitting on a stone bench beside the moat, not looking at the blossoms, but gazing silently at the water.Pitch black it was, and swathed in heavy shadows.Beyond the moat the sombre forest of the Imperial Palace blocked her view.The trees reached up, to form a solid dark mass against the night sky [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]